What We Learned At The Xbox One Preview

With the Xbox One hitting stores in just two days, Microsoft showed off their new gaming console/media streaming device/oversized box of dreams at a press event in New York City. We got a look at the Xbox One in action and, well, it’s a really awesome way to watch TV! Here’s what we learned from our sneak peek at the Xbox One.

1. The Interface Is Greatly Improved

Yes, it’s basically a redux of the Windows 8 homescreen, but the format of a grid of tiles showing your games, movies, apps, and other media works surprisingly well when displayed on your television. The “Snap” feature of running two apps side-by-side — like, say, taking a Skype call or watching TV while playing Dead Rising 3 — is a nice addition that will surely corrode our already waning attention span. The “Pins” are pretty helpful for organizing your content and saving stuff for future use, though I really wish it was called something else. We get it, Pinterest is popular.

2. The Kinect Is No Longer a Huge Joke

The new Kinect is far more sophisticated than its predecessor, recognizing your face the second you enter a room and logging you into your Xbox account. With a much wider field of vision, Kinect can distinguish between six different bodies in the room and only requires you to be three feet away from the Xbox as opposed to six as with the previous version. (Finally, those of us with tiny apartments can use Kinect even if we don’t have room for a washer/dryer.) It can also track your heartbeat, which is more than a little terrifying if you think about it long enough.

Yes, you can use the Xbox without the Kinect (and the Microsoft spokesperson did acknowledge that maybe people don’t want a potentially hackable camera in their homes), but you’ll lose all the fancy voice commands and be forced to scroll through the menu with your controller like it’s 2007 or something.

3. Switching Between Apps Is Super Fast

Easily the best part about the Xbox One so far is the ease with which you can go from playing a game to watching TV, to searching for something to watch on Netflix or Hulu Plus to using Bing to look up a Thai place that delivers at 1am. There’s no more switching inputs or changing wires or turning the Xbox off and opening up your laptop to make a Skype call. Unfortunately Xbox Music is the only streaming music option available right now, though you can also stream content from any Windows machine with the “Play to” feature. And, uh, hey, it plays CDs! That Toad the Wet Sprocket disc collecting dust on your shelf isn’t going to spin itself…

4. Talking to Your TV Is Surprisingly Fun…Provided You Have Excellent Diction

In the demo I saw, the Xbox One was finicky unless you spoke to it like Professor Higgins teaching Eliza Doolittle how to talk like a proper English lady instead of a filthy street flower peddler. The clearer your diction and the stronger your voice projection, the better Xbox One will respond to your commands. That doesn’t mean you have to yell at the TV, but mumbling orders at it while hungover isn’t going to work most of the time.

Slightly more annoying is the Xbox One’s need for specific vocal commands. For instance, to play Forza Motorsport 5, you have to say, “Xbox, play Forza Motorsports 5,” not “Xbox, play Forza” or “Xbox, play Forza 5.” The Microsoft rep said that the audio command for games is dependent on the developer and that some – like Ryse: Son of Rome, which responds to the far less wonky statement “Xbox, play Ryse” — will be simpler than others. Also shouting commands to Bing in mixed company is more than a little embarrassing.

5. The Audio Commands Could Use Some Improvement

There’s also a lot of potential for frustration and (potentially hilarious) mishaps with the new voice commands. When the Microsoft rep running our demo said the word “pause” while talking about the system’s TV viewing capabilities, the Xbox One suddenly jumped into action and unpaused Forza Motorsports 5 like a good little A.I. that is likely biding its time until the moment when it can achieve sentience and enslave us all.

You can tell the Xbox to “Stop Listening” (which will particularly come in handy whenever you’re talking about what you plan on getting it for Christmas), but the system seemed awfully eager to respond to its pre-programmed audio commands. Also, since it responds to any voice in the room, your significant other can easily go “Xbox, what’s on The Cooking Channel?” and make it switch over to the Deen Brothers while you’re in the middle of blasting zombies. Expect to see plenty of hilarious videos of couples fighting over who has control of the Xbox in the months to come.

6. The OneGuide Is Actually Better Than Most Cable Guides

I can’t speak for everyone’s cable provider, but the OneGuide makes me want to never look at my ugly Time Warner Cable guide again. With its tantalizing photos of your favorite New Girl stars and advanced search capabilities, the OneGuide is far more intuitive than your average cluttered cable guide. If you were to, say, search for TV shows or movies featuring Twin Peaks alum Sherilyn Fenn, you’d get everything offered on your cable listings as well as on Netflix, Amazon Instant, Hulu Plus and (soon) HBO Go. (To answer your next question, yes, you need a Xbox Live Gold membership to access all of the aforementioned streaming options. To answer your next next question — no, Boxing Helena is not available on Netflix, streaming or otherwise.)

One downside — once you’ve set up your cable to play through the Xbox with the included HDMI cable, the Xbox always has to be on if you want to watch TV. Also, you can’t tell the Xbox to record live TV, so you’ll still need your lame old DVR remote for that. Look at it, just sitting there, not responding to our frequent requests to record Steven Universe. What a piece of junk.

7. Microsoft Assumes You Want to Do Everything on Your TV

Microsoft is really banking on the hope that you want to consume all your content on your TV. They’re pushing the fact that the Xbox One can store several unique profiles for the whole family and bring up your personalized content with just a few words. Except, the whole family already has access to pretty much the same content on their mobile devices.

It’s nice that the updated SmartGlass app lets you access your Xbox One account from your mobile device, but outside of checking friends’ stats and pinning stuff for later use, are you really going to use this feature? You can already watch Netflix, Hulu and HBO Go on your mobile device. Why download another app to access the same content through your Xbox One account?

8. It Could Put an End to Games Discs as We Know It

Now that you’re able to log in to your Xbox One account from any system, it is now officially cumbersome to purchase physical copies of games. If you’re all digital, you can get into your account through a friend’s Xbox One and have access to all of your games and other data. If you purchase hard copies, you’ll still need to insert discs wherever you go. (That shouldn’t sound dirty, but it does…) And if your friend wants to keep playing, say, Killer Instinct after you’ve left, they’ll have the option to buy it digitally and keep all of their achievements. If nothing else, this could finally put a stop to that one friend who always seems to somehow get peanut butter stains on your discs.

9. Recording Game Footage Is Easy (Maybe too Easy)

As a way of perhaps making up for the fact that you won’t be able to stream live gameplay over TwitchTV just yet, Microsoft is playing up the Xbox One’s instant record capabilities. The system constantly records the previous five minutes of gameplay, allowing you to rewind and relive that insane car crash or zombie head explosion.

By saying “Xbox, record that,” you can capture game footage and send it to the Xbox One Upload Studio. There you can edit the clip, add audio commentary or record video of yourself waxing poetic about your sick moves before uploading the footage to Xbox Live or your SkyDrive. Want to share it on Facebook or Twitter? You’ll have to upload it to Skynet, I mean, your SkyDrive, first.

On the plus side, the fact that it’s never been easier to record high-quality game footage hopefully means the end of camera phones being shakily pointed at the TV. However, you can only record up to five minutes of footage, so, for the love of Cthulhu, keep your Battlefield 4 rants pithy, people.

10. Microsoft Could Care Less About Games (For Now At Least)

Yes, there are 21 launch titles, and some of them (ahem, Dead Rising 3) look pretty great. But we were only shown Forza Motorsports 5 which is pretty, but basically looks like every racing game you’ve played since Cruis’n USA. The focus is on apps and exclusive media content, and right now Microsoft has the edge on Sony in that department. If you’re looking for a killer gaming system, you probably want to wait for a price drop and better titles to come out. If you want a boxy, voice-activated TV to show off to your friends, well, then, congrats, because you’re part of the new consumer base that Microsoft is trying to reach.

Ultimately, Microsoft has succeeded in delivering an all-in-one entertainment hub for our attention-challenged times. This is the first step to a world where we all have TVs that allow us to switch between a Skype call and an episode of Almost Human with a simple voice command. Now if Microsoft will just remember that this amazing super cable box they’ve come up with is also a video game system, it might be actually worth shelling out $500 for.

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The Kinect is incredibly creepy. I want nothing to do with it, don’t want it in my house, and don’t want to be in a house with one in it.

Point ten, not caring about games, is funny. The Xbox is a gaming device. Be that first and foremost and then try to do all the other shit. Stop trying to be the device I didn’t know I needed and be the device I know I want. So, basically, be a PS4.

It is really creepy? Right now there is a camera on my laptop pointing right at my face as I watch this. My iPhone has the same thing. Both devices house info on my bank, mortgage, pictures of my family, etc.

This paranoia of the Kinect is irrational when you think of all the other devices around that are currently spying on you or have the ability to spy on you.

I just don’t really see the appeal of all the multimedia shit. Sure, it’s cool. I get it. I do. But is it $500-cool? And yes, the Kinect is creepy. I already encountered creepiness on a smaller scale when I plugged in the PS4 Camera this weekend and realized it has an always-on microphone that broadcasts all the time. So if you’re playing online, you’re basically always heard in game chat. There’s no way to turn it off, other than to just unplug the camera. And the Kinect is even more invasive than that. So no thanks.

But I would just like a bigger focus on games. Maybe all this multimedia stuff is the future, and 5 years from now I’ll be looking back and thinking I was an idiot, but for now I don’t see that stuff as being a system seller.

I honestly think the Xbox One has better and more interesting games at this point than PS4. The only game that excites me on the PS4 is Resogun. Dead Rising, KI, and even Forza 5 (I loved Forza Horizon and am curious about the main Forza series) compel me to get a Xbox One.

Granted, I’m not getting either the PS4 or Xbox One right now because I am not made of money. But, really, the Xbox One feels to me like a better buy than the PS4

I like the Forza series. Sony fucked up by putting Gran Turismo 6 on PS3 instead of next-gen.

I am interested in Ryse, although the reviews I’ve seen aren’t glowing.

Beyond that, there’s not really anything exclusive-wise that blows me away. I got sick of Dead Rising 2 after a couple days, so I doubt DR3 would be much different.

Titanfall will be a system seller for me, though. So, I will probably pick up an XB1 in the spring sometime.

PS4-wise, Killzone is amazing visually, and a fresh change of pace for FPS fans from the usual generic forward-forward-cover style of COD and Battlefield. It’s much more open ended.

Resogun is like crack, and may be my favorite game this entire year on any system, to be honest.

Beyond that, yeah the PS4 exlusives list is pretty barren. I haven’t tried Knack yet. But InFAMOUS: Second Son in March makes up for everything, and is far and away the biggest game coming out in the next year on either system (that we know of so far) for me.

95% of PS4 games will also be available for Xbox One, plus Xbox One has all the multimedia functionality.

Another interesting question is what will be added in time through patches. For example, the ability to use a DVR voice command or perhaps record directly to Xbox One hard drive. I’d also imagine voice recognition will be patched over time to better follow regional dialect/slang perhaps even map your own commands to perform a macro. Lots of potential here.

So for an extra 100$ you get a fancy cable box that can also play some games but only if you live in the United States and its closest competitor, PS4, has objectively stronger hardware when to comes to actually running games. Hmmm…

The other thing is XBone’s games. Any “exclusives” will also be landing on PC if I’m curious enough to check them out so I have little incentive or justification for that extra 100$ price difference since I’m a very happy cord-cutter that doesn’t appreciate the idea of paying extra for services I already pay for like Neflix, Hulu, Amazon etc. And if you live outside the US the voice commands and TV shit dont even function.

Watch for that non-removable hard drive to become a big handicap in the near future. And no that external drive option will not be the same thing. When external storage finally becomes available (since whoops, it’s not at launch) it will still have to go through the USB interface and even at 3.0 will likely produce serious lag and latency if running games.

By comparison the sexy 2 TB SSHDD I just scooped up will not only eliminate my library space issues but give me a big performance upgrade when I conveniently swap it into my PS4.

XBone’s business strategy is also a big reason Im really satisfied with switching over. Keep an eye out for reduced content in full priced games getting sold back to you in micro-transactions. Forza is a great example of what’s to come with it’s reduced tracks and cars. Prepare to be nickle and dimed like never before.

The writing was on the wall at E3 with where Microsoft’s head is at in regards to how they want to monetize everything they can and I’m glad I was paying attention because no thanks.

The whole paywall argument loses its weight if you are a fan of multiplayer, since you have to pay for multiplayer on both consoles. Sure, you could argue the principle of it, but you’d still have to pay up on both consoles either way.

@Dub
You are correct, but only since recently. I’ve been enjoying the benefits of Playstation Plus for about a year now and let me tell you, I can say with confidence after having Live for around 6+ years, it really is a much better deal than XBL and has a much better perceived consumer value. MS only recently started actually adding value to Gold by throwing some games at it. But they aren’t very good and still not on the level of the free AAA titles that Plus users have been getting, and don’t even get me started on how much better the Sony store is throwing sales and discounts at you.

But you are absolutely correct Dub in that the paywalling of paid services like Netflix and such would be a moot point for a fan of online multiplayer like me. But…

But what about those that don’t play multiplayer or might only get it when certain games come out? What about the gamers on a tighter budget that pick up Infamous Second Sun but aren’t interested in Battlefield or CoD and want to wait until they “need” it for Destiny?
That is still a big fuck you to wall off services you already pay for, especially when the competition goes out of their way to make it a point to NOT engage in that kind of intrusive monetizing. re: Sony’s “Sharing Video”.

The thing is, you generally will never need to have that many games installed at the same time. And since installs are so quick anyway (at least on PS4) I don’t really see this being a major issue. You can just uninstall a game when you’re done with it to free up space.

Oh yeah, I wont “need” the space but after a bunch of years with the 360 and PS3 I like having a library of games on board and ready to play. The biggest reason I upgraded the hard drive is the convenience of that space and the performance factor. The hybrid drive holds it own speed-wise against an SSD and will make a marked improvement in the PS4’s already impressive performance. Check this video out:

From the multiple reviews and comparisons I’ve read, the general consensus seems to be that while the two are more or less on par right now- the One might be more feature-rich, but those features are at times a little half-baked/inconsistent out of the box, while some games sound like they look a little better on the PS4 right now (running more games natively at 1080p, rather than upscaled from 720p)- but the One pretty clearly has a brighter future. It needs to iron out some kinks, but once that’s done (and sure as you’re born, it will get done.. just look at how many times they re-iterated on the 360 over it’s 8 year span), it’ll pretty much be unstoppable.

They both look like solid consoles, but I’ll eventually be getting the One. I’ll be waiting a few months before I’m ready to do that, though.

With that lack of surround sound support on XBone, they sound a little better on PS4 too.

XBone does have a bright future but not so much outside the US, and also if they don’t nickle and dime you death first with all the micro-transactions. I for one want to see how most of Microsoft’s business strategy shakes out first before I let them anywhere near my wallet again.

I kind of feel like both are on the back foot. Sony sold a pretty amazing amount of consoles last week; no console has ever broken a million in sales in its debut weekend. That’s a hell of a thing. The flipside is that it’s got fewer games and the must-have title, inFamous, is months away, and Sony seems like it wants to straddle the PS3 and PS4 for a long time; I’m not sure how that strategy is going to pay off.

The Xbox One has the potential to be a generation winning system, but frankly, I think the whole “WE CONTROL YOUR ENTERTAINMENT!” thing is going to choke. And their entire strategy is built around that. It doesn’t feel like they’ve got a plan B when consumers basically stop using that HDMI port and treat it as just another game system.

Ever since I heard what Microsoft was trying to do with the One, my feeling has always been that it could have waited one more generation. I can appreciate their motive, and applaud the forward-thinking, even if none of it was anything I was really asking for in a new Xbox. Still, it’s sound like this integration is somewhat haphazard which in the end will only make these features more obnoxious than useful in some cases. Right now it’s looking like Microsoft just wanted to piggy-back on the success of the 360 in implementing their plans for living room domination, and it jammed all of this into the One just to get their foot in the door, thinking they can fix it later on.

I’d really love to hear how all these multimedia features play out for foreign consumers. With the recent console ban lifted in China, where does the Xbox fit in as only a gaming station? Though i could think of quite a few governments that would LOVE to have a camera in everyone’s living room.

Lets say I live in a mythical world where I’m not already in crazy debt. To me the extra features aren’t worth the extra cost.

I have almost the opposite problem as all these young hipsters do that consume all their TV on iPads and Hulus. I have an upstairs TV with the DVR and cable on it that we use 90 percent of the time and a TV downstairs where I do all my video gaming. Wife watches Dancing with the Stars, I play Battlefield 3 everyone wins. The TV I use to game on isn’t even hooked up to cable, it’s there just for video games and movies. Why spend an extra 100 bucks on really fancy TV integration that I can’t use at all?